


Hold Me Tight

by neverendingdream



Category: Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
Genre: F/M, That's it, a gratuitous dose of fluff and cheese and sappiness, all for a ~30 sec long deleted scene, also i haven't written in a disgustingly long time, and just general waxing poetic and a bunch of incoherence, so this is prob a mess, that's the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 00:50:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17152196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverendingdream/pseuds/neverendingdream
Summary: Astrid and Charlie dance together at Rachel and Nick's engagement party.





	Hold Me Tight

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas + happy holidays!!  
> i live but only bc of the dance scene don't @ me i'll be crying forever
> 
> this is an actual mess i'm so sorry
> 
> ~~y'all.....i'm actually gonna die when crg comes out...like i can't even handle this one deleted scene without my heart exploding...and charlie hasn't even had any lines yet~~
> 
> The mandarin lyrics to 我要你的爱 are actually pretty simplistic but I? Am trash? AND WILL OVERANALYZE HOW THEY FIT THE SCENE AND ASTRID AND CHARLIE’S RELATIONSHIP AND AAAAAAA

_ 我, 我要, 我要你， _

_ 我要你说, _

_ 为什么不敢说爱。 _

_ I, I want, I want you,  _

_ I want you to say it _

_ Why don't you dare to talk about your love? _

 

Nick pulls Rachel down for a deep, long, well-deserved kiss, and everyone goes wild. Amidst the cheers of the crowd-- Colin’s whooping louder than Bernard, Araminta’s shrieking, and it sounds like Kitty’s chanting “Make babies!”-- Astrid lets her forced excitement slip away, the grin on her face melting into something softer, more tired. Maybe even a little wistful.

She’s happy for them. She really is.

Frankly, she’s amazed at how Rachel managed to fight for and  _ earn _ the respect she deserved from Nick and Astrid’s messed up family, and she’ll tell Rachel that and soundly scold Nick again for putting Rachel through all that. Later.

Right now, she’s just… tired.

_ ‘Maybe I’ll have a last glass of champagne,’ _ she thinks, weaving her way through the throng of dancing bodies to the bar area, which is, mercifully, less packed. She’s about to take a seat nearby until the bartender isn’t occupied when she spots Eddie and Fiona talking to someone and immediately backtracks. That’s  _ one _ headache she’d rather not have right now. 

Astrid sighs and moves toward the edge of the roof, hoping their conversation will be over  _ quickly _ because the  _ someone _ they’d been talking to had looked  _ too _ familiar, and God, she needs a drink, now she’s  _ seeing things. _ Seeing ex’s, to be more precise. If that was a thing at all.

A memory rises to the surface of her mind, unbidden: Charlie asking her to dance with him on a rooftop in Paris not so different from the roof of the Marina Bay Sands. She smiles at the thought, and it feels like the most genuine smile she’s made all night.

But the past is the past. 

She leans against the railing, letting the humid night air wash over her, hoping it will ground her a bit more and pull her away from her memories.

It doesn’t.

Now that she’s thought of him again, she can’t help but wonder… was it really Charlie she saw?

She takes a breath, composes herself, and risks another look over at the bar. Eddie and Fiona have vanished, and she’s half wondering if she really  _ was _ seeing things when she sees him again. She sees Charlie.

Catches him staring, to be precise.

Astrid turns away, too fast to be passed off as casual. Her heart’s hammering in her ears, and she’s not sure exactly  _ what _ is coursing through her right now-- nervousness? excitement? something else entirely?

Out of the corner of her eye, she catches him glancing at her again. She’s fairly certain he’s blushing and smiles, almost automatically. 

_ ‘He hasn’t changed a bit _ ,’ she thinks.

She looks again, and he’s still staring, until their eyes meet and his blush deepens and he turns to the bartender. And she  _ knows _ , it probably doesn’t really mean anything, she  _ knows _ that he has a wife and a family, and their broken engagement’s ten years old and buried under thousands of feet of snow and a thrown Frosty, but something finally feels  _ right _ , as if there was a little piece of her heart missing all these years and she hadn’t even noticed.

Tomorrow, she’ll have to think about Michael again, and the huge fight they’ll be sure to have over the terms of their divorce. Tomorrow, Charlie will have to go back to Hong Kong, and Nick and Rachel will have boarded their plane back to the States, and the reality of  _ everything _ (what she intends from now on, for Michael, for Cassian, what she feels right now for Charlie) will come crash back down on her.

Today,  _ tonight _ , the night is still young, her thoughts are blurry with champagne, and all she knows is this: She’s tired of losing, of regretting, of sacrificing to keep up appearances. Life, after all, is too short to deny herself what she wants to keep others happy.

And right now, she wants to dance with Charlie.  _ To forget everything else, if only for a moment. _

 

So she does.

__

He sees her at the engagement party. Or rather, he tries not to see her, in fact, he’s not quite sure why he’s there to begin with, but she’s there, she’s there and she’s all he can see.

Their eyes meet, and he’s frozen on the spot, blushing like the idiot he is, trying to act nonchalant and failing desperately. He grasps for something witty to say, but the first thing that comes out of his mouth is  _ “Long time no see.” _

Or more accurately,  _ ‘Almost ten years to the day since we last interacted. Not that I’m counting. Or keeping track. Or anything at all.’ _

Somehow, he convinces her to dance. Or perhaps it’s the other way around-- he isn’t too sure of anything at this point, except her, her, her standing in front of him, her taking his hand.

Every rational fiber of his being is screaming at him to stop, to turn around and walk away before he falls even harder than before, before he tries to bridge that ten-year gap between them, but her hand is in his, her eyes are on him, and he’s gone, his heart hers in a second, in an instant. 

The music swells around them He coaxes her into a gentle sway to the music, into a spin and he can practically  _ feel _ her hesitation, a hesitation that, by all rights, he should be feeling too, but all he wants to do is smile at her, to make her happy, because it’s like old times again, him and her against the world. 

She’s smiling, and that’s all that matters to him, she’s smiling, smiling at him, giving him a teasing look, a sparkle in her eyes as she beckons him forward with a finger, so he throws all rational thought to the wind, and well, tries not to make a  _ complete _ fool of himself, dancing more and more extravagantly, his only hope that he doesn’t stumble or slip. He spins to a stop in front of her, hand outstretched, trying not to look  _ too _ pleased that he didn’t fall on his face, and she laughs, really laughs, and takes his hand.

With her hand in his, her fingers entwined with his, he feels more alive than ever before, as if for ten years, time had frozen without her. Their gazes meet again, and she’s inches away. His heart can’t take it-- he has to say something, anything, maybe confess on the spot--! 

He thinks he’s never loved her more than in this moment, in this moment that he doesn’t want to ever end.

She spins away, and back again, and he pulls her down into a dip so low their foreheads almost touch, his arms snug around her, her hand curving over the back of his neck.

_ He wants to kiss her. _ Or rather, he wants her to kiss him.

That’s all he can think, looking down at her, at the fireworks reflected in her eyes, at her lips, parted somewhere in between surprise and something more tender.

But a semblance of rational thought returns. He pulls her back up gently, arms lingering around her waist, his heart begging his mind to think of a reason, any reason to stay holding her like that for even a moment longer.

Her hand lingers on his chest perhaps a second too long, and he thinks maybe, just maybe, she might feel the same way, too.

__

_ Just maybe. _

**Author's Note:**

>  ~~still populating the cra tag, one obnoxiously self-indulgent fic at a time~~  
>  prompt meeeeee ~~but also don't bc i'm bad at actually writing~~


End file.
